Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a fool, a simpleton [note cit. 2001].

1799		Carlton House Mag. 217: The spoons or novices are permitted from prudential motives to be successful at the commencement.
1825		‘Shadrack the Orangeman’ in Universal Songster I 27/1: Dere’s a soft spoon — look at him, stare him in the face.
1827		J.M.F. Wright Alma Mater I 218: Now that year it so happened that the spoon was no spooney.
1837		‘Do You See Anything Green About Me’ in Sam Weller’s Favorite Song Book 8: Experience soon came to my aid, / Though once but a regular spoon.
1842		S. Lover Handy Andy 15: Am I a spoon, you rascal?
1844		J.W. Kaye Peregrine Pultuney I 136: We do get some good by going to Addiscombe; we leave off being spoons at all events.
1854		Delhi Sketch Bk 1 Sept. 100/1: Handle Spoons Every Officer will immediately seize upon the silver article so named, care being taken that imbecile gentlemen, vulgarly called Spoons be not laid hold of instead.
1854		‘Cuthbert Bede’ Adventures of Mr Verdant Green (1982) II 143: Explain the common denominators ‘brick’, ‘trump’, ‘spoon’, ‘muff’, and state what was the greatest common denominator in the last term.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 327/1: I’ll add half-a-dozen of the very best Britannia metal tea-spoons, and if you don’t buy, you must be spoons yourselves.
1868		‘I Am A Downy Bird’ in My Young Wife and I Songster 43: I’ve owed five quarters rent, / And wouldn’t ‘shoot the moon,’ / To pay it been content, / Oh, wasn’t I a spoon?
1872		Day’s Doings (London) 12 Oct. 15/2: ‘What a spoon she made of me once, to be sure’.
1882		G.A. Sala in Living London (1883) Nov. 529: The ‘society masher’ is merely a good-looking and rather foppish ‘ladies’ man,’ somewhat of a ‘spoon,’ and occasionally a ‘muff’.
1896		G.F. Northall Warwickshire Word-Book 223: Spoon, Spoony. A simpleton, noodle.
1982		G. Newbold Big Huey 147: I realised I was talking to a real spoon so I decided to have some humour with him.
1992		A. Duff One Night Out Stealing 34: No, ya spoon, that’s just a saying. It’s a – you wouldn’t understand.
2001		OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 spoon n. a person so dense they were not allowed to use a sharp object, they could only have a spoon.

2. (Aus.) the penis.

1843

Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 11 Feb. 3/1: The great qualification he possessed, and of which he frequently boasted, was what he termed his ‘silver spoon’. Big Jacko [...] had a great desire to exhibit this ‘spoon’ [...] to the neighbouring lasses.

3. a foolishly infatuated lover.

1849		Bell’s Life in Sydney 15 Sept. 1/2: Last week Maritana was left newly married. / And Cesar, of course, just about to be harried; / A fate very proper for every such spoon.
1853		G.J. Whyte-Melville Digby Grand (1890) 23: Old Halberd [...] laughed at me for being ‘such a spoon.’.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 224: A spoon has been defined as ‘a thing that touches a lady’s lips without kissing them’.
1879		‘’Arry on the River’ in Punch 9 Aug. 57/1: Tried to splash a smart pair of swell ‘Spoons.’.
1882		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 23 Dec. 10/2: It is strange what lengths love will carry the modern ‘spoon’ to.
1890		Sporting Times 22 Feb. 1/4: ‘Only say yes, my darling—only tell me you will be mine.’ ‘Silly boy, how can I? My husband’s in the best of health, and we are the greatest spoons in the world.’.
1890		Dead Bird (Sydney) 4 Jan. 4/2: Not too amorously happy and by no means what's called ‘spoons’.
1900		Truth (Sydney) 2 Dec. 3/3: If the Boss, he may admire her, / He ain’t too much of a spoon / [...] /Letchery it are the name.
1910		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘Let Well Alone’ Sporting Times 3 Sept. 2/2: He found / That the ‘spoons’ were his wife and a gent.

4. a foolish, sentimental affection.

1875		‘Aliph Cheem’ Lays of Ind (1905) 135: They spooned from morn to eventide, / They lived and they breathed on spoon.
1885		‘’Arry on Song and Sentiment’ in Punch 14 Nov. 229/1: ‘Spoons’ — sweetheart or nursery, Charlie, go down with the women, old chap.
1887		‘’Arry on Angling’ in Punch 30 July 45/2: I told ’er ’er lips was true ‘spoon’-bait.

5. in attrib. use of sense 3.

1906

Sun. Times (Perth) 29 Apr. 4/7: He went through the gamut of spoon songs, / But still she was adamantine.

6. a second-rate coachman.

1876

‘Some Road Slang Terms’ in Malet Annals of the Road 393: 4. Of Coachmen Spoon or lame hand...A bad [coachman].

7. a flirt; an act of flirtation; thus do spoons v., to offer sentimental and ridiculous protestations of love.

1881		N.Z. Observer (Auckland) 15 Jan. 169/3: To this day he has failed to convince a few suspicious friends [...] that he had not been doing a brief ‘spoon’.
1881		Bulletin (Sydney) 5 Mar. 8/2: A fond admirer, who, oblivious to the fact that we are not all suffering from an attack of ‘spoons’ in that direction, commenced to applaud frantically.
1883		‘’Arry on His Critics and Champions’ in Punch 14 Apr. 180/1: Wot hodds if it’s chivvying swells with red ties, doing spoons at the ‘Gai,’ / Or leading a rush along Fleet Street.
1886		N.Z. Observer and Free Lance (Auckland) 20 Mar. 23/4: What a grand spoon the gardener and tanner must have had with the Misses W. and S.!
1900		Truth (Sydney) 28 Oct. 5/5: Takes her out across to Manly, / Does the heavy on the spoon; / Later finds Hyde Park convenient, / Where there aint no pryin’ moon.
1902		Harrington & LeBrunn [perf. Marie Lloyd] Bond Street, Tea Walk 🎵 For, in a tea-shop, don’t you know - they’ve lots of spoons / Parisian confections, elaborate complexions.
1905		Sun. Times (Perth) 5 Mar. 4/6: We’ll know in future when to book / Our dates to have a picnic spoon.
1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Nov. 12/3: The Customer: ‘A spoon, please!’ / Absent-minded Waitress: ‘I really haven’t time.’.
2000		hipslang.com 🌐 spoon: (n.) a girl who doesn’t put out ex. damn, that sneak is a motherfuckin spoon too.

8. (US) a shovel.

1967

(con. 1920s) J. Thompson South of Heaven (1994) 7: Getting our hands all calloused with those long-handled spoons.

9. (also spoonful) 2g (1/16th oz) of heroin or cocaine [approx. 1 teaspoonful].

1961		Rigney & Smith Real Bohemia 62: As of June 1959 heroin [...] sold at $40 a spoon, $20 for half a spoon.
1965		C. Brown Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 173: I started buying cocaine in quantities [...] a spoon for forty dollars.
1973		E.F. Droge Patolman 169: Cocaine [...] is usually sold in ‘spoons,’ one-gram packets of tinfoil, at a price of fifty dollars each.
1977		A. Hoffman Property Of (1978) 228: Give me the shit [...] I want that spoonful.
1989		(con. 1950s) Courtwright & Des Jarlais Addicts Who Survived 156: If you buy it from the niggers uptown, they’re going to give you sixteen level spoons. But if you go over to the guineas on First Avenue, you get twenty-one level spoons an ounce.
1999		E. Bunker Mr Blue 365: ‘Twelve-page habeas petition mailed Marin County Court this afternoon.’ It translated: twelve spoons, or twenty-four grams of heroin had been sent to an address in Marin County.
c.2003		D. Vrij ‘Tying Off’ on Inter-zone.org 🌐 After sitting around his crib for a week, while his vehicle was having its ignition replaced, other little details, coming down but no thought of kicking, he was at last, on his way to the spoon.

10. enough heroin to provide a single injection [the contents of the spoon that is used to heat the drug].

1979		‘Iceberg Slim’ Airtight Willie and Me 66: She cooked up a spoon and drew a shot up into the dropper.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 70: A record player has got to be good for five or six spoons.
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 75: Spoon [...] a unit of measure of one dose of a drug, primarily a drug that is ‘shot’ or injected, such as heroin.
2019		N. Walker Cherry 229: [Y]our new friends would eat the eyes out of your head for a spoon or twenty dollars, your old friends stayed away.

11. (N.Z. prison) a newly qualified prison officer.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 174/1: spoon n. a new prison officer recently completed his or her training.